UPDATE 1-North Carolina Republicans open to new U.S. House seat vote if fraud found

North Carolina Republican Party leaders
said on Thursday they would be open to holding a new
congressional election in a district roiled by fraud allegations
if a state investigation finds enough evidence that the outcome
of the race was affected.

Almost a month after Republican Mark Harris declared victory
in his race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the
North Carolina board of elections is declining to certify the
result as it investigates mail-in ballots from two rural
counties.

If fraud is uncovered, the board could order a new vote.
Democrats in the U.S. House are also calling for an
investigation and could rule on the contest when they take
control of the chamber next year.

North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes said
his party supports a public hearing by the stateelection board
on the investigation into allegations of improper handling of
ballots by political operatives.

"If they can show a substantial likelihood it could have
changed the race then we fully would support a new election," he
said in a statement, adding that Harris should be certified the
winner if the ballots in question would not have changed the
outcome.

Based on an initial tally, Harris edged out Democrat Dan
McCready by 905 votes.

That was before residents of rural Bladen County provided
sworn affidavits that people came to their homes and collected
absentee ballots that they had not filled in. It is illegal in
North Carolina for a third party to turn in absentee ballots.

An analysis by Michael Bitzer, a politics and history
professor at Catawba College in North Carolina, found Harris won
61 percent of these votes, even though registered Republicans
cast only 19 percent of the absentee ballots.

To explain the results, Harris would have needed to also win
every voter unaffiliated with a party, or about 39 percent of
the absentee voters, along with some Democratic votes, Bitzer
said.

"I'm not saying that can't happen, but there is a very high
probability that it did not," Bitzer told Reuters by phone,
noting the absentee vote in the rest of the district favored
McCready.

Bladen and another rural community under review, Robeson
County, saw high interest in absentee ballots this year with
abnormally large numbers of ballots unreturned, Bitzer's
analysis showed.

Republican state lawmakers on Thursday said questions have
been raised about mail-in ballots in Bladen County for years,
including in elections where Democrats appeared to benefit.

In a press conference, a group of Republican legislators
called for Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to convene a
bipartisan panel to investigate, claiming the state's elections
board was not neutral despite having bipartisan representation.

Democratic leaders questioned their motives.

"Republicans claim to care about putting a stop to election
fraud and protecting the integrity of our elections," North
Carolina Democratic Party chairman Wayne Goodwin told reporters.
"But with the most egregious case of election tampering our
state has seen in decades in front of all of us, Republican
lawmakers are attempting to pass blame and derail an ongoing
investigation."

The state elections board has said it would hold a hearing
by Dec. 21.

The contest will not affect the balance of power in the new
Congress. Democrats already gained enough seats to take control
of the House, while Republicans expanded their Senate majority.
(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; editing by
Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)